Book 5
5
(For the term gain is used in a general way to apply to such cases, even though it is not strictly appropriate to some of them, for example to a person who strikes another, nor is loss appropriate to the victim in this case;
6
but at all events the results are called loss and gain respectively when the amount of the damage sustained comes to be estimated.) Thus, while the equal is a mean between more and less, gain and loss are at once both more and less in contrary ways, more good and less evil being gain and more evil and less good loss; and as the equal, which we pronounce to be just, is, as we said, a mean between them, it follows that Justice in RectificationA slightly different term is here introduced, but apparently without difference of meaning. will be the mean between loss and gain.
7
This is why when disputes occur men have recourse to a judge. To go to a judge is to go to justice, for the ideal judge is so to speak justice personified. Also, men require a judge to be a middle term or medium—indeed in some places judges are called mediators—, for they think that if they get the mean they will get what is just. Thus the just is a sort of mean, inasmuch as the judge is a medium between the litigants.
